Check
by DreadNot
Summary: Hellraiser comic canon. It doesn't take a Lemarchand box to open the gates to Hell. Just obsession.


It started with the book. 

When it fell into my hands, I was barely past the age of my first dreamy girlhood crush. My dreams were never the same after it found me.

"The Magic of Chess." I think my mother thought she was encouraging my genius. This is more a calling than a hobby or avocation, but I do owe her for bringing me the book and for her later contributions.

Did she open it? I earnestly doubt that. The title must have been all it took. Her little girl would read all about the greats and want to follow in their footsteps.

I think she wanted me to be a child prodigy. Her _daughter, _the genius.

Oh Mother, little did you know…

_**click**_

∙∙∙

They leave them for you. Breadcrumbs.

They don't want the tourists. They want the devotees.

I've learned. I've been devoted.

_Why won't they take me? _

Just a little more. I haven't gotten it quite right. It's a failing of mine, not of theirs, of course.

It won't be long. Just this last one. This last piece and the game can begin.

The setup is nearly complete.

_**click**_

∙∙∙

I'm not sure when it became impossible to stop.

It must have been about the time I discovered the engraving in the middle of the book – one glossy page with the most vivid depictions of a game about to begin. The players were invisible except for their hands – one rolling a pawn between its scarred digits, the other, missing a finger, is shown about to place its queen in position.

There was so much promise in that engraving. Details that resolved themselves out of random lines with promises that there were more details if I would just _learn_ how to see them.

Details that I would learn myself when I set up the game shown to me. Somehow I knew that it was _my_ game and mine alone. All I had to do was to be worthy of it.

_**click**_

∙∙∙

Pawns were easy. That's sort of the point, I guess.

That's why they're pawns – easily moved, easily lost, easily forgotten when their use is past.

They're easy to spot on the street. Usually all it takes is the promise of payment for a bit of yardwork to do the trick.

Sometimes less. Sometimes just a smile and a strategically tight sweater.

Faceless. Nameless.

Just pawns.

_**click**_

∙∙∙

Rooks gave me more trouble. I stared and stared and stared at those pieces trying to find the clue that would tell me what sort of materials I would need to make them.

I had hoped they would be easier than the pawns, since there were fewer to make. I tried carving a rook from pawn material, but knew before I had done more than make a few preliminary cuts that the material was inferior for my needs.

Rooks are like crows. It couldn't be as simple as finding and using a bird – the construction was all wrong.

It came to me when I took down a magnifying glass to pore over every minute detail in the engraving. Carved into the crenellations of each tower in lines as fine as a baby's hair were hearts, spades, clubs, and diamonds.

Rooks are also people who cheat – swindlers, frauds, and…

… card sharks.

I had to learn to play to lose. I had been studying "The Magic of Chess" for years with an obsessive eye to winning. Learning to lose cost me.

But I paid the toll and rook after rook followed me home to collect his winnings.

_**click**_

∙∙∙

Knights took me years to understand. I looked for significance in their engravings the way I had found it in the rooks, but I could not understand what I saw. A key. An anchor. An axe head protruding from bars. A compass rose.

What did they mean?

I struggled with the symbols while I continued collecting the pawns, the rooks, and the bishops.

It wasn't until I was dropping a quarter in a basket to pick up a tootsie roll that I saw the connection.

It took me years and several relocations to obtain the help of a Grand Knight, a Deputy Grand Knight, a Treasurer, and a Warden of the Knights of Columbus. I had to be careful with them. Who knew what went on behind closed doors in their secret society?

For all I knew, I would become _their_ tool instead of using them to my ends.

_**click**_

∙∙∙

The white queen.

I finished my first queen early. I had planned to save the queens for just before the kings, but my mother had to interrupt me in the middle of a black knight.

She didn't understand, but I couldn't have done this without her. I turn the white queen over in my fingers sometimes and hear her voice, _What are you doing? Dear God. **What are you doing? **_

_**click**_

∙∙∙

Bishops really were as straightforward as they seemed.

Who says Hell has no sense of humor? Hell has a perfectly devilish sense of humor.

Find a priest. Corrupt a priest. Lure a priest.

Kill a priest

_**click**_

∙∙∙

The kings were difficult.

My first king was all wrong. After I had him carved, I knew where the problem lay. The kings in the engraving had breasts – subtle, but there.

Kings with breasts?

I nearly drove myself mad trying to puzzle out where to find kings with breasts.

Then I happened across one of those titillating pseudo-documentaries that the cable stations love to run late at night. Drag kings.

The things I had to do to get two drag kings to contribute to the board...

Still all worth it.

_**click**_

∙∙∙

It was years until I was willing to see what I had to see to make the black queen. The four-fingered hand in the engraving – the one with the pattern of freckles on the back that resembled the constellation Orion. The one that looked just like mine, less a bone or three.

That black queen was the final test of my devotion.

Honestly, the hardest part was just trying to carve all of the intricate details while short one finger on my primary hand, but I managed it.

The last piece.

_click_

_"The Artist has finished."  
"It took her long enough."  
"She has set up the game for you."  
"Then I suppose it is time to play and collect our new sister." _

I'm not ready to be finished.

_The door swung open. _

I thought it was the destination that I wanted.

_There would be no door soon, but the Artist had earned her game. _

It's not the destination; it's the trip.

_The scarred figure took the empty seat opposite the Artist at her masterpiece of a game board. _

I'm not ready! I didn't know!

_He picked up a pawn and rolled it between his fingers, nodding appreciatively at the vibrating fear it held. _

I'll give you more! I'll make another board! More pawns! More knights. More rooks. More bishops. More kings.

_Check. _

More queens. I have more fingers.

_And mate. _


End file.
